by Marie James
Has he always been this big? Damn it, he feels amazing. My internal muscles flex and quiver along his bare, rigid length, and I know I could come from him just being inside of me.
“Not yet,” he grunts, knowing full well how close I am.
“Cannon,” I pant.
“Not. Yet,” he bites out, but my body doesn’t want to obey.
I yearn for it. I need it. I can’t hold back.
With just the slightest wiggle of my hips, I disobey him.
My body doesn’t care about the grip of his hands on my skin. It doesn’t care that he wants me to last so things can build and become even more explosive.
I come, the orgasm nearly knocking me to my knees, but he doesn’t let it happen. I’m impaled, held up by the strength of his hands, and when my eyes meet his in the mirror, I expect to see irritation at doing exactly what he warned me not to. But his teeth are digging in his bottom lip, and his eyes swim with his own need.
My own eyes flutter closed as the orgasm flutters through every cell in my body.
“Bad girl,” he rasps as he shifts, dragging his cock out to the very tip. The slow glide reignites the fire I started moments ago in the shower.
The crack of his hand on my ass is unexpected but doesn’t come even close to being unwelcome.
Snapping my head up, I glare at him, a weak attempt to showcase anger I’m not even close to feeling.
He’s unaffected by it, glaring back like that one hit is only the beginning.
“Behave,” he snaps before I can open my mouth to chastise him.
Then he gets to work, his hips snapping forward before drawing out.
He does this—over and over and over.
He does this until I can no longer hold my pseudo anger.
He does this until his fingers grow slick with sweat on my skin, both from his exertion and the humidity still hanging in the air from our shower.
He does this until my body is ready to explode once again.
“Yes,” he hisses, the growl of his voice somehow amping up the power of his cock as he slams into me. “Give it to me.”
And I do.
He owns it, the orgasm swirling through my blood.
Fuck, does he own it.
“That’s it,” he praises when I ripple down him once again.
Then, it’s his turn. He buries himself to the hilt, jerks inside of me, and spasms his release, setting off another mini orgasm before I can even pull myself from the one I was having.
His hands are still locked on my hips, even as his head tilts back and he groans.
“Jesus.”
I laugh at his reaction, but the sound is strangled, exhaustion clear in my response.
“You good?” he asks after a long moment of us standing there.
“Perfect.”
With strong hands, he pulls me from my bent over position until I’m standing up; only then does he step back and pull free from my body. He grins when I whimper.
“Greedy girl.”
I shrug, still meeting his eyes in the mirror as his fingers trace circles on my lower belly. I can’t deny the truth. He brings me such pleasure, and instead of leaving me satiated, I only want more of him.
“Get in the shower,” he commands with another slap on my ass.
I glare at him, spinning around to stare him directly in the eye instead of his reflection in the mirror.
I open my mouth to snap at him, but my jaw snaps shut when he cocks a challenging eyebrow up.
He laughs, a low, husky sound when I step around him to get back in the shower.
He keeps his eyes on me, only turning back to the sink to wash up when I’m under the warm spray of the water.
“Hurry up,” he says when he can tell I’m taking my sweet ass time. “We have shit to talk about.”
The look in his eyes tells me he’s gone from playful to serious and even with his command, I wash slower, unsure of what’s going to happen next.
Chapter 34
Cannon
I had a plan in my head when I came to her room. I was going to fuck her like a mad man before I asked her about what I heard.
I did that, just as I’d planned, but I didn’t expect my heart to clench at her smile when she first saw me standing in her space.
As she finishes in the shower, my mind races back through the last several months—the first time I laid eyes on her, when she stepped in my room with the condom, the time we spent together at the hotel, the conversation I had with my brother and Lawson after I had the chance to spend a little more time with her.
Their you’ll see makes more sense right now than I ever thought it could.
They saw it coming. They knew Rivet was different for me even when I couldn’t see it for myself.
This changes everything.
Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe this is just sex on her end.
The thought makes my heart race, but as much as I’d like to not know if that’s where her head is at, I can’t leave this room without verifying.
My hands shake a little when the water in the bathroom turns off. I don’t bother pulling my clothes back on, and I don’t resist the pull of her messy bed either.
On the outside I’m calm, but inside I’m wondering if this girl is going to turn my life upside down in ways I won’t like.
“Come here,” I tell her when she steps into the room with her towel wrapped around her body.
“Let me get dressed.”
She turns her back to me as she walks toward her closet. I know exactly what she’s doing, why she’s been so adamant about not getting completely naked in front of me until I found her in the shower earlier.
“Come here,” I repeat.
Her eyes snap over her shoulder at me, but she doesn’t do as I’ve demanded.
I climb out of the bed, grabbing her hips before she moves away.
“Cannon,” she whispers. “Please don’t.”
Ignoring her, I tug at the top of her towel to loosen it.
“Please,” she repeats.
“You’re fucking perfect.”
“I’m—”
“Fucking. Perfect,” I whisper as her towel drops to her feet and my fingers drift over the puckered scarring on her left side. I’ve seen enough wounds growing up around the Cerberus guys to know she was hit with shrapnel.
I press my lips to her shoulder, circling my fingers around her belly button and loving, fucking loving the way her abs ripple under my touch.
“It’s horrible.”
“You’re a warrior. All warriors have battle wounds.”
Gooseflesh covers her skin when I nip at the sensitive flesh between her ear and shoulder.
“Never hide from me again.”
When she turns in my arms and looks up at me, I can’t resist brushing my lips against hers. I missed her kiss more than I should’ve, considering it was less than two hours ago that my mouth was on hers in the hallway at Jake’s.
“Come to bed.” I grab her hand and tug her in that direction, but she digs her feet in.
“I need to get dressed.”
“And I need you naked because I think we’re about to have a conversation that’s going to piss me off and your skin touching mine is the only thing that’s going to keep me sane.”
Worry swims in my gut when she stops fighting me. It only confirms my thoughts.
I pull her against me, allowing her head to rest on my chest instead of looking at her directly because I’m not going to be able to control my face.
“Tell me about the phone conversation I interrupted earlier.”
To her credit she doesn’t flinch or stiffen, but a long sigh does escape her lips, the warmth of her breath sliding against my bare chest.
I decide to wait her out, but she doesn’t take long to respond.
“I was on the phone with my best friend Bishop. We served together. He’s still in the Corps.”
I want to relax with her words, but something tells me this guy isn’t just
a friend.
“Only friends?” I ask because how can I not? “You have to leave town to hang out with your friend?”
“He wants to post up at an expensive hotel and order room service for every meal. He’s been away for too long. He said he wants to be pampered.” She chuckles like it’s a ridiculous idea, but I can tell she’s not telling me everything.
“Please don’t make me ask you a million questions like a psycho.”
She sighs again.
“We’re just friends. At least that’s how I feel. A while back we got super drunk and ended up sleeping together.”
I stiffen under her because I just can’t help it.
Jealousy, that tiny little green monster, the one I haven’t really felt since Griffin came home with his truck after he graduated, raises its head. I’ve never felt this because of a girl before, and it nearly takes my breath away.
Just friends is easy for her to say, but I’ve been inside of this woman, and I know any man who has experienced that will not just walk away and chalk it up to drunken idiocy.
“And you’re going to spend the weekend out of town, alone in a hotel room with him?”
She doesn’t answer, and I hate the way every muscle in my body thrums with anger because of it.
With gentle hands, I move her off my chest and sit on the side of the bed, hands running roughly over the top of my head.
She doesn’t say anything to relieve my fears, doesn’t reach for me when I stand to gather my clothes from her bathroom. She doesn’t open her pretty mouth until I’m fully dressed and walking toward the door.
I’m agitated, beyond pissed, but I’m not particularly angry at her. I should’ve seen this coming. I should’ve kept my feelings out of this. It’s my own mistake for getting tangled up in the first damn place.
“Can we talk about this like adults?”
My feet stop, mere inches from her bedroom door.
“I don’t know what you want from me.” Her voice is low and pleading.
I turn around to face her, doing my best to ignore the way she’s holding the thin sheet to her breasts.
“More,” I tell her. “I just want more. More time. More info. Hell, I don’t even know your real name.”
“You never asked.” Her top lip twitches with mirth, but I can’t get dragged right back into her orbit when I don’t have a damn clue how this is all going to end.
I stare at her, and some of my anger washes away when she tilts her head to the side to get a better look at me.
“Angeline Hern.”
“Angie?”
Her face grows serious. “I’ve killed people for less.”
“Rivet?”
She shrugs, understanding my question. “Who the hell knows. Marines are idiots with too much time on their hands. It started in bootcamp and just followed me.”
“Tell me more about Bishop.”
She holds out her hand, but I shake my head at the offer. I can’t crawl back in bed with her just yet. I need to keep a clear head, and since she’s still completely naked, that would be impossible.
“He’s my best friend.”
“Friends with benefits?”
“It only happened once.” Her eyes grow soft when she sees my hands clench again. “It was a mistake.”
“He wants to spend a weekend alone with you,” I remind her. “That doesn’t really scream just friends to me.”
“We aren’t friends with benefits.”
“What are we?” Is that what we are? Are we really even friends? Would she call me if she needed something, or would she reach out to one of the guys instead? It’s this uncertainty that’s fueling every one of my emotions right now.
“It’s not like we’re planning a three-day fuck-fest,” she says instead of answering my question.
“And I’m just supposed to be okay with letting my girl spend a few days in a damn hotel room with a guy who has already seen her naked and wants to again?”
“Your girl?” She sounds incredulous when she asks, but her lips are turning up in the corner.
“Aren’t you? Or are we just fucking because it’s convenient?”
She scoffs, her eyes rolling. “There’s nothing convenient about getting caught walking out of your boss’s house with sex hair, or all the guys knowing we’re having sex.”
“So we aren’t just fucking?” I feel like a chick right now having to even ask this.
How do I go from commanding her to her knees, making her come on my cock twice in a matter of minutes to sounding so damn insecure?
“Right now, we’re arguing.”
“We’re talking,” I clarify.
“You’re picking a fight for no reason.”
“You’re still avoiding the damn question,” I growl, but most of my anger dissipates with every word we say to each other.
“Do I need to sit on your face to shut you up?”
“As amazing as that sounds,” legit, my tongue sneaks out with the temptation, “I need answers.”
“And you need them tonight?”
“Preferably.”
“I never took you for the guy that needed romantic declarations.”
“I’m a man of many layers.”
Her eyes roam from my face and down my torso, an appreciative look in her eyes.
“And if I accept that I’m your girl?”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. “Is that what you’re saying?”
She shrugs, and it makes my palm itch to smack her ass again.
“Angie.”
Her eyes narrow.
“Do you want to be my girl?”
“I’m not a girl.”
“You most certainly aren’t a girl,” I agree quickly. “But are you mine?”
She blinks up at me, but she doesn’t seem like she’s struggling with the decision. That doesn’t keep me from dangling from her hook for several long moments though.
“Are you mine?” she asks instead.
“In every sense of the word,” I tell her without hesitation.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
She rolls her bottom lip between her teeth. “Sure, why not?”
I tilt my head to the side, mild agitation rearing its ugly head. “Don’t sound so damn enthused.”
“I’d be more enthused if you were naked, and I could see your cock jerk with my agreement.”
She’s got me there.
“This isn’t just sex?” I clarify as I strip down once again.
“No. It’s also agitation because you’re emotionally more needy than a chick. And it’s naked cuddles. And orgasms.”
“That’s all sexual,” I mutter as I rip the sheet from her body before climbing into the bed and lying down beside her.
“It’s holding me at night,” she says as she settles on my chest. “Especially when I get back from a bad day at work. It’s you wrapping your arms around me even if you don’t know what to say.”
I pull her tighter to my chest.
“It’s waking up to your smile and getting to know you better with every minute we spend together.”
We both settle, the room growing quiet, only our breathing interrupting the silence.
“I’m not okay with you spending the weekend with a guy, any guy, in a hotel room. Have him come to the clubhouse. He can meet all the guys, and you can show him what MC life is like.”
“Are you getting territorial?” Her voice is serious, but I feel her mouth smile against my skin.
“Of course I’m territorial. No one squeezes my cock like you do.”
She huffs.
“Seriously, and that fucker has experienced it. I know what he’s after, but he has to know who you belong to.”
“Belong to?” She huffs again.
Without warning, I flip her over and settle between her thighs.
“Belong to,” I repeat.
“Oh yeah?” Her legs wrap around my ass, and when she flexes, she positions me right where I al
ways want to be.
This may not be about sex completely, but the sex is so damn good. It’s one of the amazing benefits of being here with her.
“Yeah.” I groan my response when she swivels her hips. “You’re not staying with him.”
“Okay,” she agrees.
“That easy?”
She shrugs, her hands coming up to wrap around my neck.
“Yep.” She pops the P against my lips. “Can we stop talking about Bishop now?”
When she licks into my mouth, my mind blanks and neither one of us thinks about the guy for the rest of the night.
Chapter 35
Rivet
“This is… quaint,” Bishop mutters when we step inside Jake’s.
His irritation is clear. It was clear when I picked him up from the airport and told him we weren’t going to be getting a hotel room in Albuquerque, or when I told him I’d cook anything he wanted while he was here in Farmington. It didn’t fade on the way to the clubhouse, and it grew when I showed him to his room and he realized we weren’t sleeping in the same bed.
I’ve done my best to ignore it, but he’s making it harder and harder each time he opens his mouth to criticize something.
I don’t know what he thought my life was going to be like here, but it hasn’t changed much from being in the Corps. Even in the service we waited around until we’re called out. We have more downtime than most people realize.
“Draft or bottles?” Grinch asks the group before heading to the bar.
We all put in our requests.
“Bottle,” Jinx answers, and Grinch growls at him.
“You’re getting iced fucking water.”
Jinx grins, happy with the implication that he won’t have to pay for a damn thing tonight. Seriously, the man would rather stay at home than drop twenty dollars on a night out. I feel sorry for the girl he ends up with. She’s in for a boring life filled with cheap things.
Grinch splits off, heading to the bar, and the rest of us head to the far back corner of the room. I plan to keep my eyes off the bar for as long as I can manage. I know what I’ll find there, and just the prospect of seeing Cannon in his element makes me want to meet him in the back hallway for a few minutes.
I want more.
Geez, those words last night made me feel things I’ve never even wanted to feel. It wasn’t all bad, even though in the back of my mind I’m waiting for things to fall apart. I’ve never been good at relationships. In fact, I haven’t had anything resembling serious in years—like before I graduated high school. Not that you can call a six-month relationship during senior year serious. It was at the time, but it’s nothing compared to how I feel about the sexy bartender.
